With a title of
"The Future of Food", it might be possible to think that this
might be a sleeper, but quite on the contrary, it is fascinating and
full of facts that will startle many - even those who are well-versed
in the subject of GMO food.

I saw this film on the Big Island on Saturday, which was the main attraction
at the Hawaii Chapter Sierra Club Executive Committee meeting and I
plan to see it again on Wednesday. This important documentary presents
facts that everyone MUST know about if we are to feed ourselves in the
future. (See film review below.)

GMO- Genetically Modified Organism which is the same as GE - Genetically
Engineered, both of which are also known as "Franken Foods"
(as in Frankenstein).

Don't miss "The Future of Food", an extraordinary film examining
the changes occurring with the world's food supply to be shown at
the Kilauea Neighborhood Center (right next to Kilauea Theater) on Wednesday,
August 25 at 7:pm. Please join GMO Free Kaua`i for pupu's
and Kaua`i's premier of this new documentary about genetic engineering.
For more info, call 651-9603.

(West Side folks- If you don't want to travel all the way up to Kilauea,
GMO Free Kaua`i will be putting it on down your way, too, minus the
pupus.)

FILM REVIEW

Last March, the
food-safety organization GMO Free Mendocino did something no group had
ever done: It ushered through a law banning genetically engineered crops
and livestock.

It was a David-thrashes-Goliath victory. Opponents of the legislation,
led by the agricultural trade group CropLife America, outspent the anti-GMO
activists by a nearly 10-1 ratio. But GMO Free Mendocino had a secret
weapon: a film, then a work in progress, called The Future of Food.

The new documentary, created by Deborah Koons Garcia, uses archival
footage and interviews with farmers and agriculture experts to argue
that GMO foods are jeopardizing our food safety. During the past 10
years, the film tells us, genetically engineered crops have infected
our food supply and undermined cultivation methods that have been refined
over thousands of years.

The Future of Food lays out a detailed case against genetically engineered
crops. Exploring a gamut of issues from so-called suicide seeds to lax
food-safety enforcement laws, and from the controversy over patented
genes to infected cornfields, the film is a comprehensive and chilling
example of anti-GMO rhetoric.

GMO Free Mendocino spokesman Doug Mosel described The Future of Food
as a major factor in the passage of Measure H, which banned the use
of GMO farming within Mendocino County, California.
"The Future of Food could be the Fahrenheit 9/11 of the genetically
engineered food battle," Mosel said. The film is currently touring
festivals and other events, including an upcoming screening in San Francisco.

Garcia, Jerry Garcia's third and final wife, has been interested in
the ways plants can be mutated since childhood. At 15, she won a science
fair award for an experiment involving irradiated plants, and she has
followed the evolution of genetic engineering for years.

"My goal was to make a film that gave the average person a clear
understanding of how genetic engineering works, from the cellular level
to the global level," Garcia said. "I'm hoping this film can
be a combination of Silent Spring and The Battle of Algiers. Once you
see it you'll feel compelled to act, even if that means just changing
the kind of food you eat."

Though The Future of Food is not intended as a two-sides-to-the-story
analysis, Garcia said she requested interviews from representatives
at Monsanto, the multinational seed and pesticide giant that is driving
the genetically engineered food movement. She did not receive a response.
Perhaps Monsanto is trying to keep a low profile. The company has suffered
a string of well-publicized setbacks to its genetically engineered crop
initiatives in recent years, including closure of its GMO wheat project
in May.

According to agriculture expert Chuck Benbrook, Monsanto and other biotech
agriculture companies are "retrenching -- reducing their research,
reducing projections for profits, watching the range of viable applications
shrinking."

Benbrook served in the Carter and Reagan administrations before becoming
executive director of the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy
of Sciences. In his various positions, he watched as biotech companies
rushed products to market. The first GMO foods reached shelves in 1997.

Though scientists were initially supportive to the point of being myopic
-- Benbrook described early reports from the National Academy as "unadulterated
boosterism" -- biotech foods today look less promising than they
did even a few years ago. According to Benbrook, genetic engineering
has failed to solve the problems advocates hoped it would. And, he added,
food-safety concerns remain unresolved.

"The biotech industry is beginning to recognize that there are
lots of reasons why it's hard to move genes across boundaries,"
Benbrook said. "Scientists have found ways around the natural protections,
but there are really good reasons for them being there, and we violate
them at some cost."

For five-sixths of the problems that genetic engineering promises to
address, Benbrook added, genetic solutions are not necessary.
GMO companies are also finding increased resistance on the legal front.
In April, Vermont became the first state to require registration and
labeling of genetically modified products. According to one anti-GMO
site, nearly 100 towns in New England have approved some sort of anti-GMO
legislation.

Since the Mendocino law was signed, Garcia said as many as a dozen other
California municipalities have drawn up similar legislation.
"The Future of Food has already helped change policy," Garcia
said. "I think it is possible to make California GE-free, and it's
exciting to think that the film could have some role in that."